Sunday, September 6, 2009

Watermelon Sorbet

The recipe had been calling to me for weeks. "Watermelon Sorbet." Those two words said everything that I thought needed to be said at the end of a meal on a warm summer evening. What a way to end the summer . . . with a delicious watermelon sorbet. Sweet, frosty, mellow. Goodbye Summer, you've been wonderful!

So I planned for this pièce de résistance that was going to delight my family. Picked the watermelon. Picked the evening. Picked the meal.

When I sliced open the watermelon, it was end-of-season pink, instead of the full-bodied red I was dreaming of. Oh, well, nothing a little extra sugar couldn't cure.

I made the sugar-water syrup, chopped the watermelon, added the lime juice, processed in batches in the blender, chilled 2 hours. And then slipped it into its icy metal home to be made into sorbet.

Ten minutes after starting up the ice cream maker, there was a distinctive thudding sound, instead of the placid swishing I was looking for. I peeped in and found the whole substance to have become a stiff mass, clinging to the paddle, like so many chickens backed up against the hen house in the face of an oncoming storm. Thump, thump, thump, it clunked around.

I rescued the mass from its dizzying revolutions. It promptly separated into a thin, watery liquid and sharp icy crystals. I chopped, refroze, chiseled, scraped, and by the end of dinner I served what was to be my signature "farewell to summer."

"I'll pass," said the Man of the House, who doesn't care particularly for watermelon even in its native form.

"Watery," declared one of the 5 food critics at the table.

"Too lime-y," said the another who had questioned the addition of that ingredient from the beginning.

"Icky," piped up the third, apologetically.

"Delectable," said Oldest Son, clearly wanting to escape dish duty for the night.

"Delectable?"

He consulted his I-pod and its link to the online thesaurus.

"Enticing! Swashbuckling!"

Uh-huh.

"Good!" said Youngest Daughter, dreamily, delighted by anything in which she could find a pure, source of sugar.

Ah, yes, goodbye, Summer. We've loved you. And now we send you off with a less-than-rousing farewell.

So, what to do with a half-gallon container of rock solid watermelon ice? Partially thaw and reblend.

Shelley,I hate to admit it, but as a child I'm pretty sure I would have responded like your oldest son. Same motivation...in sheer hopes of getting out of doing the dishes! I think every mother out there who has ever stumbled upon "that recipe" only to have it fall short of our expectations can relate to this post. Priceless!

I'm sorry it didn't turn out well. Summer found a recipe for watermelon granita and we tried to make it. The watermelon itself was delicious. The granita? Not so much. By the time we have frozen and scraped and frozen and scraped, we didn't even want it any more. We, too, had some watermelon slushies and then dumped the rest down the drain. It is all in the trying though, right?

I hope you have a wonderful Thursday. Your picture does look quite delicious!

About Me

There was a time when I could at least give off an illusion of perfection on the outside and fool myself on the inside into thinking I had everything under control. However, along the way as I've accumulated a husband, 5 kids, miscellaneous pets, and daily to do lists, I'm learning to live joyously with all the messy imperfections of life, led each moment by the hand of my God who never leaves me.